A re-work and re-design of a recent project, aimed at pushing ideas further and producing a more sustainable outcome.

Rules: The new design must comply to the original client brief and planning guidelines - prefabricated modular construction, all units consist of 2 bedrooms + ensuites, maximum 40% site coverage, compliance with council car parking requirements.
Problems: The current design requires significant site and construction work after module placement on site [cladding, blade walls, balconies] severely reducing the effectiveness of the prefabricated nature of the project. This also unnecessarily increases costs and construction time.
Opportunities: What is the maximum that can be incorporated into a module, could it be wholly self sustaining? Could it sustain itself off-grid?

Part One. The first work in a series focusing on the capital of Australia. Canberra has a huge amount of 'important places' and landmark buildings, the nation this and the nation that.. but how well do we ever take notice of these places?

The intent of the Bowden Community School is to promote social interaction on a variety of levels. A folded skin wraps the structure facilitating interaction taking place on the level of the students. The next level of interactions is between the school and the community at large as the learning spaces of the school act as one with the courtyards becoming a hive of school wide activity. Steps and slopes provide more places to give different speeds of movement throughout.

The two cities, or perceptions of the cities, show how different perceptions can create different environments. The residents of zeitgeist and nostalgia live in the same city. It is their perceptions and viewpoints that differentiate between the two cities, these two conditions cannot exist in isolation.

The bridge does not act in the conventional way, but as there is only one city a conventional bridge should not be required. By only touching one shore the bridge does not reject any one of the two viewpoints. It is because the structure only touches one shore that the bridge can serve as a paradigm of the idea that the past and future are always present within one and any city and that there can be no one city that exists solely on a single perception.